


One Penny Two Penny

by sakuraba



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Hitman For Hire Dennis, M/M, Siren Yuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 20:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8175040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakuraba/pseuds/sakuraba
Summary: Yuri is a siren pulling strings to get back home, maybe. Dennis is complicated.





	

**Author's Note:**

> happy (belated) birthday to my best yuri!! i hope it was The Best, you are so so dear to me and i hope this is up to standard!! (forgive me, i've never written duskshipping -- which is WEIRD considering how dear it is to me but!! you get my first one.)

There’s blood on the waves.

The thing about fishermen is that they are stupid but also endlessly clever. Clever, because they’re always coming up with new traps and tricks to get merrow into their nets; clever, because one managed to catch Yuri, who’s managed to avoid capture his entire life, even as a kid with a hard head and a weak feel for the sea. Clever because royalty is hard to catch.

Stupid, because they always think they can dodge the claws.

Yuri’s in what humans call _a bloodbath_ and he calls _a bad mood_ , wriggling his new toes hard enough to break them. There’s nothing keeping him from jumping ship back into the sea, not really, but his feet hurt and one of the fishermen managed to slice his arm up and yeah, okay, he’s just a little bit curious about this new body business. Scrawny legs, two of them, no scales on his arms or on his newfound feet – everything the lessers at the academy talked about, hushed whispers about forbidden trips to the boardwalk. At night, they’d said, it lit up like fire down the strip, colors you couldn’t see beneath the surface. Yuri’d never had much interest.

He flexes his hand. No claws to be seen, now that he’s dry; no fangs either, judging by how empty his mouth feels. Is this really what the human body looks like? It’s so… ugly.

Ugly, and weak. He spent too long playing with the fishermen, forgot about the dehydration that comes right after transformation; his eyelashes flutter, and he drops to the deck.

 

 

He comes to on something sticky and uncomfortable, and fortunately for whatever human is… whistling?... right next to him, he’s too dizzy to go flapping his arms around and – wait, no claws. Right. This whole human business isn’t leaving a great impression.

He’s got some human clothes draped over his shoulders, too big; they pool around the tops of his legs, just below where his tail would begin. Weird.

“Hello, morning glory!”

A bottle of water lands in Yuri’s lap, which officially makes him care enough to look over at the person next to him. It’s a boy, one smiling much too brightly to have just picked up a bloody boy from the docks of some ship, and he’s… driving, if Yuri’s remembering the term correctly. Oh! He’s being taken somewhere. That’s cute.

Yuri grins and takes a swig from the water bottle. “Hey,” he says casually. “What are you doing?”

A laugh. “I should ask you the same question. All covered in blood and surrounded by corpses on a squid jigger – must’ve been one hell of a party, huh? That or you’ve got a nasty temper.”

“Both.” He takes another sip of water, considers killing the boy and making a run for it. It’d be smart, but… “Let me guess – you want to sell my skin?”

“Whoa!” the boy laughs again, smile widening. “Pretty gruesome, huh? You’re awful skeptical. Maybe I’m just being nice.”

“Humans are never nice to merrow.” He bares his teeth in a grin. It would be more impressive with fangs. “But I guess we're not very nice either, hmm?”

To his credit, the boy seems unrattled, just drums his fingers against the steering wheel and glances over with a quirked brow. “You don’t look like a merrow.”

“Huh? Well of course I don’t _now_ – I haven’t been in water since I got netted, and–“ He pauses. “If you didn’t know, where are you taking me?” It doesn’t occur to him to be wary. He doesn’t need claws to kill someone, after all.

“To the boss!” the boy says brightly. “Anyone who can take out seventeen guys and come out with nothing more than a sprained ankle is worth trying to recruit.”

Yuri thinks about home, about the palace halls and the palace gardens and the palace academy, where he’s probably needed to help conduct classes and sign papers and so much more boring tedium. Burdens of being royalty, burdens of being the best. there are a hundred things they probably need him for, now that he thinks about it; the place is probably going to set itself ablaze when they all realize he’s gone missing.

He kicks his feet and smiles. “sounds like fun.”

 

 

The boy is named Dennis and Dennis has terrible taste in food – that or all human food is slop, which Yuri is sure it is. He gets Yuri what he calls a cheeseburger to the human at the window, and it is greasy and disgusting and delicious. Yuri asks for seconds.

“We can’t recruit you if you’re not human,” Dennis says, cheerful as ever with his eyes on the road. “But we’re not skin-sellers, so we tend to do contracts with merrow when we come across them. You help out with a job, we keep you fed and under wraps then send you back to the ocean.”

“You’re awful confident that I won’t just kill you,” Yuri says through a mouthful of cheeseburger. He’s amused despite himself. This is much better than a day trampling underclassmen to dust. “You didn’t restrain me, either – I don’t need claws to do you in, you know.”

Dennis shrugs. “Figure you would’ve done it by now, to be honest. We’re a while’s away from the ocean, now, so if you don’t want to run a few miles back to the beach, it’ll probably be easier just to stick around awhile. Besides–” He smiles a little as he glances over at Yuri, something more private and more sinister than the grin from before. “It’s more entertaining this way, don’t you think?”

Yuri blinks, takes in his freckles and his cherub curls and his long legs curled over the driver’s seat. Would it be easy to kill him? He’s suddenly less sure.

He smiles. “You know, I think I do.”

 

 

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you’re a siren,” Dennis wails. He’s dramatically woeful, flinging himself over the couch in despair. “I could’ve haggled a _much_ better reward from the boss.”

“Are you still going on about that?” Yuri says. He’s in a bit of a temper now that he’s hungry, and Dennis had promised he’d make them dinner once they got back to his apartment. If he’s going to stay here, he isn’t going to do it hungry. “Make me a cheeseburger.”

“Awful bossy, aren’t you?” Dennis asks good-naturedly, but he walks to the freezer as he does. Something Yuri’s noticed right away is that Dennis’s expressions are always exaggerated, twisted to be comedically charming or grotesque – he’s fun. The grotesque comes out the minute he opens the freezer. “The tragic life of an underpaid hit-man! This thing’s practically empty – hope you like pizza, because I don’t think I’m up for a trip to the store right now.”

Yuri, as it turns out, does like pizza, or at least as much as he’s liked any of the human food so far. It’s slop, but it’s good slop, and he pulls the too-big hoodie over his bare legs contentedly as he eats. “So tell me how this works.”

Dennis hums, doesn’t bother to tear his gaze away from the television when he answers. “The job? It’s pretty simple. I’ll put you up for a few days til it’s time, then you hitch a ride with me over to the mark’s place and work your magic. I’ll be on clean-up, and that’s pretty much it.”

“What, you can’t do it yourself?”

“Bad protocol to only send one person on a job. Something could go wrong, or I could need help, and it’s just unprofessional, y’know?” He laughs. “Not that anything’s gonna happen that I can’t handle. I was on a solo mission today when I got you, y'know. Boss just doesn’t like paying two people when he can get out of it – he’s got a feud going with the skin-sellers in town, so working with merrow and setting ‘em free just sticks it to them. Only using you guys for one job is more salt in the wound. Not like we really need the extra help or money, honestly.”

Yuri mulls that over. Dennis’s place is warm and dim; the TV drones quietly over the sound of people laughing outside. “What happens after that?”

He’s a beautiful boy, those cherub curls and freckles and long long leg to walk down the beach, to pick up bloody boys off of ships. Yuri wants to put him up on his wall. “After that, you should probably get out of here,” he says. His nose crinkles apologetically, pretty smile for a pretty face. “We kill people, y’know?”

Yuri smiles.

 

The days leading up to the job are… surprisingly uneventful, at least for Dennis. He doesn’t have any work to do in the meantime, so says he’ll put on the TV for Yuri and then go about his day.

Yuri gets bored of this in after about ten minutes.

The thing about the surface is that it’s _different._ Being royalty is essentially many-splendored bullshit; they wrap you up in silks and jewelry and then send you down the narrow path to doing and being whatever the hell is expected of you. Honestly, he’s never had much interest. He isn’t even allowed to fight outside of the academy, which would be all well and good if the other students weren’t boring and weak and pretty much good for nothing but sharpening his trident. No fighting, no privacy, no leaving.

no singing.

But Dennis’s apartment, small though it may be, is full of things Yuri’s never seen before, so he’ll be damned if he’s going to watch some bullshit box all day rather than asking questions.

“What are these?” he says after a few minutes of snooping the apartment. There’s an assortment of potted plants on the windowsill, bright green in the triangles of morning sun. Nothing Yuri’s ever seen before, not even in the palace gardens. He clumsily sets himself down closer to him and his face is warm in the sunlight.

“Huh? oh, those are Kurosaki’s. Nothing I know much about, except for the venus flytrap. I’m just watching them while he’s on business – do you like them?”

He picks one up and stares at it, at the bright red petals and thorns and dry, dry leaves. No, nothing like it in the gardens back home, but then, what did he expect?

Dennis laughs when he doesn’t answer. “If you want, there’s a shop downtown I can take you too – nothing legal, obviously, but there’s some real dangerous stuff down there. Figure you might be interested in stuff that can kill, yeah?”

Yuri smiles, all teeth, but even then there’s some sincerity there – a change of scenery without responsibility, a hand without a leash attached. “How’d you know?”

 

 

On the third day of dicking around, Dennis comes to him with his hand over his chest, expression solemn. “Yuri,” he says. “You reek.”

Yuri shrugs, unconcerned. “I think I smell fine.”

“Then your nose is waterlogged. Take a shower, for the love of god.”

“I don’t know how.”

A few exasperated exchanges later Yuri finds himself up to the shoulders in bubbles, rolled-up jeans on Dennis’s legs as he climbs to sit on the side of the tub. “You’re going to have to do the loofah-ing yourself,” he says with a laugh, like Yuri’s supposed to know what he’s talking about, “but I guess I can make sure you don’t end up with shampoo in your hair.”

And then there are hands in his hair, in-out-in-out raking through the tangles, and Yuri’s… not relaxed, really – it’s hard to be, so many knots in his hair and all –  but the intimacy of it is something new. He holds it in his mouth, rolls it around his throat and behind his eyes, wonders at the feel of it. He almost doesn’t notice his tail is out.

“I could kill you right now, you know,” he says pleasantly. It isn’t a threat, really. He likes Dennis more than he’s like pretty much anyone (not that that’s saying much), and he doesn’t see much point in killing if it isn’t for fun.

“I know.” He hums. “You could’ve killed me plenty of times since you got here, though.”

“True.”

A pause, and then, “Why haven’t you?”

Yuri’s head falls a bare inch to the side under Dennis’s hands. “What’s that? You said it yourself – it’s easier this way.”

“Right, because a siren would have a really hard time making it back to the ocean.” He snorts gently. His voice is as pleasant as always, much too wistful to be wrapped around his potential murder. Yuri thrums his fingers and watches the water ripple around them, strange and stagnant. “It’s in your blood, isn’t it?”

And Yuri thinks about the schedules, the escape routes for absent trips out to the open sea when just Being wasn’t enough. The blood of fishermen was nice at first, but it all ran the same, and what was killing for if not for a thrill? He thinks about the gardens, his orders for new plant-life strictly monitored and restricted. The palace walls, up and up and never-ending.

“I was bored,” Yuri says. It’s like him to be frank, but not so to be so soft about it. He traces a finger up his scales under the suds.

Dennis sighs something wistful and lonely. “Now there’s a feeling I understand.” He taps Yuri’s head. “now lean back. it’s time to rinse.”

 

 

The nice thing about Dennis is that he’s got everything organized scrupulously, every shirt in its draw and every gun in its holster, so when he decides to get Yuri out of the apartment “for a change of scenery” (thank god), it only takes him a few minutes to find something small enough to fit Yuri.

“I’m a bit nostalgic, I suppose,” he says, smiling guiltily as he pulls his truck onto the road. “But no harm done if I keep everything neat, yeah? Plus, you never know when you might be able to make fun.”

The restaurant they go to is a cheap seafood place down by the docks. (“Ballsy, taking a merrow to a seafood restaurant, huh?” “You act like I don’t know merrow are ocean predators.”) It looks its price tag, dingy and dimly-lit, cheap sea shells on the walls and on the sides of the buffet table. They sit by the window overlooking the sea, and Yuri knows a chance to run when he sees one. He twirls his fork around his fingers.

“Why are they singing?” Yuri asks. There’s a makeshift stage set up in the corner and humans keep passing it back and forth, more and more tone deaf as the night goes on.

“Karaoke night,” Dennis says through a mouthful of shrimp. After he swallows, he says, “Why don’t you get up there? I’m sure you’d put on quite the show.”

Yuri blinks. “I’m not really allowed to sing at home.” He doesn’t know why he says it, but there it is. No sense hiding it now. “Of course, I do when I sneak out, but…”

“Well you’re not at home now,” Dennis says. He grins. “just let me finish this plate – if everyone’s in a stupor, it’s not like they can charge us, right? I do love a free meal, after all!”

And it’s another chance to kill him, another chance to run, but it’s a chance to sing and that’s not one Yuri gets often enough to think twice about. He blows the windows out and leaves the place drooling into their half-eaten crab; by the time Dennis comes to, Yuri’s already dragged him back to the car, humming contentedly.

When they’re driving back to Dennis’s apartment, Yuri catches him staring. It’s not dangerous, really – the roads are mostly empty this time of evening, and he doesn’t doubt that Dennis knows where he’s going – but it’s notable anyway. Yuri reclines with a smirk. “Enjoying the view?”

Dennis raises his eyebrows but doesn’t stop staring, just drinks him in and thinks and thinks and thinks. Finally, he says, “You know, I think I preferred the scale and fangs.”

Yuri closes his eyes and smiles the whole way home.

 

 

“Why are you doing this?”

Dennis looks up over his cards. they’re playing old maid – or rather, Dennis is playing old maid. Yuri’s just kind of throwing cards at him when the mood strikes “What, the hitman gig?” he yawns. “What, are you getting cold feet?”

Yuri laughs. “It just doesn’t seem very you, eh? It’s not like you’re happy doing this.”

Another exaggerated expression, zanily confused. “What make you say that?”

“Happy people don’t open themselves up for murder just for fun.”

“Maybe I trust you.”

“Or maybe you’re not stupid.”

“True.” When he smiles again, it’s a little guilty. “I wanted to be an entertainer as a kid. Didn’t matter what kind, y’know? Life’s a shit-show, didn’t work out. Nothing new. Fell in with some bad folks with good money. Rest is history, yeah?”

Yuri stares at his hand, the meaningless shapes and colors and numbers. He thinks of home. “And what about entertainment?”

“Oh, that?” Dennis tosses his hand down as he stands up, ghostly in the setting sun. “You should know by now, Yuri – everything’s entertainment.”

 

 

The job is anticlimactic.

“That was anticlimactic,” Yuri says. They’re in Dennis’s car, which he’s learned is called a “shitty pick-up truck.” There’s blood on the wheel.

“I know, right?” Dennis says, head bobbing to this pop song on the radio. “I didn’t wanna set you up for disappointment, but that’s kind of how it is. Kind of like expecting good sex then going home with soggy jeans after a lousy handy.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Oh, right.” He yawns, but he's faking. Yuri wonders how he can tell. “So! Do you want me to drop you back off now or should I get you one last burger for the road? I hear McDonald’s is half-price today.”

“I don’t want to go back.”

“…a burger, then, right.” And that’s it for a few minutes. Dennis drives in silence. Yuri lets him.

The first thing Dennis says once he pulls from the drive-thru to the parking space is, “You have to go back.” Yuri unwraps his burger, unperturbed.

“I really don’t,” he says. He’s wearing Dennis’s old sweater. “And you don’t, either. Let’s go somewhere new.”

“What, you want to live as a human now?”

Yuri snorts. “Not on your life. Just stay close to the ocean. We’ll make it work.”

And Dennis is quiet for a long time, then, but Yuri isn’t worried about it. He puts a hand over Dennis’s plainly, because he thinks it’s supposed to be helpful or something. Dennis snorts but doesn’t bat him away.

Eventually, he says, “You know, a steady job is hard to find. Things are stable, here.”

“Stable,” Yuri echoes. “Isn’t that boring?”

Dennis quirks a smile, then, small and private, and Yuri knows he’s won. He cranks the keys in the ignition. “Let me pack.”

 

 

Dennis’s things are mostly boxed up when Yuri kisses him for the first time, more out of curiosity than anything. He stands on his toes, and he kisses him, and then he says, “Gross.”

Dennis, who’s turned a remarkable shade of pink and is probably regretful that he’s physically incapable of steaming at the ears, doesn’t miss a beat. “This coming from the boy with no toothbrush.” He presses his palm to his forehead. “God, you’re going to need a toothbrush. You’re really going to burn a hole in my pocket, you know that?”

“I’m sure I’ll find a way to pull my weight somehow,” Yuri says nonchalantly. He doesn’t know if he means it or not. A job sounds boring, but maybe he could find something. Maybe something with plants.

Plants. Oh. “Hey, aren’t these your friend’s?” Yuri asks, gesturing to the pots on the windowsill. They probably haven’t grown in his presence, and he’s probably just imagining things. Probably.

Dennis snorts. “Not really a friend, but yeah. I doubt I’ll be seeing him again, though, and he’s got plenty of them, so… why don’t you take them?”

“I shouldn’t,” Yuri says, and dumps them gently into his bag.

And from there they’re out on the road, the back of Dennis’s Shitty Pick-Up Truck loaded up with boxes and trinkets and everything Yuri has come to poke around with the past week. He doesn’t know where they’re going, isn’t entirely convinced Dennis knows himself, but it isn’t a palace and it isn’t a cage and every wall will have a door.

“Hey, Yuri,” Dennis says after some time. He’s grinning something terrible goofy, and Yuri preemptively rolls his eyes. “If I can’t sleep in the new place, you’ll come sing to me, right?”

Yuri closes his eyes and smiles the whole way home.

 


End file.
